The Significance of Steam and Valve's Games for Mac

[0098386]

Can't effin wait! I'm a huge Steam addict (96 games and counting), I've even bought games that will never run on my current computer just because they were so cheap (GTAIV for £4.99, Mirrors Edge, Bioshock, GRID, Serious Sam HD all for a few £). It's got that power. Having an AAA game pop up with a message saying "For sale this weekend" is a dangerous thing. I remember buying every id game in a pack on Steam for £20, or every Unreal game (including Tournament 3) for £10.

And no, Apple won't be buying them. They make PC games. It's what they do. They're independent and make a bucket load of money doing just that. All they're doing is expanding their market since, as the article mentioned, Steam has really picked up over the past couple of years. Every single PC gamer I know has it, some for just 1 game yet they still sign in and peruse the sales every so often. Things got power, yo.

I agree with You: I prefer making video instead of playing games

You and me both. I don't make FPS games, I prefer 2D. To the guy you quoted- games don't have to be 3D. I just bought 7 good indie games for £10 on Steam. Not all games have violence or weapons, try Bob Came in Pieces. Just physics puzzle solving. I made a game that has no violence at all, nothing can kill the player and they just explore a planet finding ways back to their home. *shrugs*

 

[c-Row]

I think this is pretty good, because I see Mac users as the more casual gamers... I like to have a game here and there, but I wont buy a gaming mouse/keyboard etc.

You can have pretty much fun with your vanilla mouse and Apple keyboard.

 

[Infrared]

What does "port" mean? Is that just some cheap way to bring PC games over to Mac?

If porting is what they did to the Mac version of COD4, then in terms of my experience, "porting" sucks!

Porting just means bringing it over and converting some code and adding
bits here and there for compatibility. You can do it well or you can do
it on the cheap. Porting isn't intrinsically bad, it all depends on the care
that's invested. That said, software that runs on the original platform is
likely to be better than a typical port because the original platform is
the one the developers tend to care about most. Not always though.

In passing I might note: Valve has already ported some of their games
to the PS3. Like OS X, the PS3 also uses OpenGL. I don't know if that's
what Valve uses on the PS3, though.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Porting just means bringing it over and converting some code and adding
bits here and there for compatibility. You can do it well or you can do
it on the cheap. Porting isn't intrinsically bad, it all depends on the care
that's invested. That said, software that runs on the original platform is
likely to be better than a typical port because the original platform is
the one the developers tend to care about most. Not always though.

In passing I might note: Valve has already ported some of their games
to the PS3. Like OS X, the PS3 also uses OpenGL. I don't know if that's
what Valve uses on the PS3, though.

The PS3 only has OpenGL as its Graphics Abstraction.

 

[thebeautyisfake]

This is a great step forward in bridging the gap between platforms. I'm a Windows user, I'll be honest, but I have nothing against Apple and the Mac platform.
The only thing that worries me is that now even us computer users will be subjected to the "format war" of gaming. PS3 vs Xbox? No, now it's PC vs Mac again..but for GAMES.

Let the good times (or heads) roll.

Maybe Apple should buy this company so that google doesn't buy it and port it to android. This is precisely the kind of company that google would buy to deliberately kill just so apple couldn't have it and dominate the gaming industry.

Apple needs to invent a way to use you iPhone like a joystick to control whAt happens on your television screen.

Valve make games for PCs and consoles, they don't just provide the Steam service. There is no way that would happen. Then again, I like how it's apparently okay for Apple to buy out a company for their own gain, but whenever Microsoft does it it's cardinal sin

 

[saperlot]

Back in the years i was a realy extensive CounterStrike gamer and it was in this time that was the switch to steam.
I really liked it and i'll really like to play again after a long time on my mac.
I would download it when straight as it comes out, hopefully next week.

 

[DGrau]

I've been successfully running most of my Steam games on my MBP using wine (via Macports) for a while, but the performance still lacks. I would absolutely LOVE to see this ported directly to OSX so I can run on the native system (without a software layer doing all the DirectX emulation). So for me, this is BIG.

 

[ozyr]

Gaming on Mac will never surpass PC. First, for the price of a base MBP/iMac, I could order a beast of a PC gaming system. Second, hardcore gamers like to build their own setups, and you can't install OS X on your own machine.

Oh drop it already. I'm hard core, and I have never built my own machine. Deal with that...

As for surpassing PC gaming, I really don't care. Yeah, PC games will always be bigger than Mac games, who doesn't know that.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Oh drop it already. I'm hard core, and I have never built my own machine. Deal with that...

As for surpassing PC gaming, I really don't care. Yeah, PC games will always be bigger than Mac games, who doesn't know that.

Theres robably a bigger market for Wii games now.

 

[0098386]

Screw the Source I want the originals! Do you think the Half Life 1 engine be supported, or is it just too old and no body cares enough to make it compatible...

They ported HL1 into the Source Engine (Half Life: Source) a long time ago. http://store.steampowered.com/app/280/

How can you say you'll be sticking to PC when it hasn't even been announced yet?

There are problems with OSX mouse tracking. I think even if Steam was coming to Mac with all Valve's games in tow I'd still use Windows. Also: video drivers. Though I guess that could improve with the next OSX update.

i really want to play Portal. a Wii version would be great. sadly, i'm not convinced that my 2008 iMac C2D can handle that.

You will. My 2006 iMac plays Portal well in medium settings. My 2008 Macbook runs it well on high settings.
The Source engine is very well optimised. The only 3D PC games I play are Valve titles (TF2, L4D1 and 2) and they run so well on my old iMac that I'm still using it as my main gaming computer.

 

[4look4rd]

This is great news for every mac consumer, not only gamers. I can see apple upgrading their horrible graphics card (maybe not as soon as Steam comes out, but in the near future) to be able to handle more games efficiently.

 

[thebeautyisfake]

The Source engine is very well optimised.

Are you kidding? It's a mess.

I'm hard core,

Did anyone else read that as a middle aged parent trying to sound hip to their kids? That space between the two words changes everything

 

[maghemi]

Meh. I have a far more powerful mac than any PC I ever owned. I hate the idea of rebooting into into windows. I'm not very much over building my own computers. My mac pro with a gtx 285 is far more powerful than 90% of the pc's that were at the last lan I went to.

I love this idea. I can't wait for it to happen.

 

[iChan]

So will all this stuff be native OS X, or just a port?

DOES NOT COMPUTE.

 

[MorphingDragon]

DOES NOT COMPUTE.

Computer says no.

 

[iChan]

Gaming on Mac will never surpass PC. First, for the price of a base MBP/iMac, I could order a beast of a PC gaming system. Second, hardcore gamers like to build their own setups, and you can't install OS X on your own machine.

I think Valve feels the power of a new baseline Mac is powerful enough to have a passable experience playing their games.

"surpass" has many different connotations. If used as a percentage of total userbase, I actually think Mac could at least equal the PC-side.

 

[0098386]

Are you kidding? It's a mess.

From a performance standpoint it's very well optimised. Like I said it's why my 2006 iMac can run L4D1 and 2 on medium settings and still get 40-60fps. Whereas I can't even run Unreal Engine 3 games or games from any other major engine. Even Bioshock which uses 2.5 runs terrible.

 

[H0M3R]

I think steam coming to OS X is gonna be great for us Mac users. I have been on steam since the very beginning and I don't even buy games anymore unless they are on steam.

With steam, I can play my games on any computer I have it installed and I don't have to mess with CD/DVDs anymore. DRM has never stopped me from playing my games. Sure, when a new game comes out there is a mad rush for millions of people to play it and can cause some problems, but thats never been a real problem for me.

Gaming on OS X really has two main problems:

1. Lack of native versions of games. I think the lack of native ports will be less and less of a problem if valve's games sell really well on OS X as more developers see that OS X is a viable platform for selling games.
   
   
2. Apple really needs to have computers that can be upgraded easily. For instance, the 2006 Mac Pro I have can not really be upgraded past an 8800GT without resorting to flashing video cards. Even then you are limited to specific models that can be flashed. While all in one computers are nice, a lower cost Mac Pro (just call it a Mac ) that costs about half of a mac pro with better video card options and future expandability would sell quite well I think. Apple can also not just abandon a model when a newer one comes out as far as graphic cards like they did with the Mac Pros.

I upgraded the video card in my 2006 mac pro to a 4890 and its still a really good computer, but the upgrade was not as easy as upgrading a PC. When it comes to up upgrade this computer, if there is not a cheaper and more expandable Mac, I may have to go to the PC route.

 

[MorphingDragon]

From a performance standpoint it's very well optimised. Like I said it's why my 2006 iMac can run L4D1 and 2 on medium settings and still get 40-60fps. Whereas I can't even run Unreal Engine 3 games or games from any other major engine. Even Bioshock which uses 2.5 runs terrible.

I think he means how the engine is designed.

How is it a mess? It uses a lot of APIs for the Lua scripting but thats about it.

I upgraded the video card in my 2006 mac pro to a 4890 and its still a really good computer, but the upgrade was not as easy as upgrading a PC. When it comes to up upgrade this computer, if there is not a cheaper and more expandable Mac, I may have to go to the PC route.

Macs by hardware design can't be upgraded easily using PC parts. They use a newer technology called EFI which provides several improvements including removing the 16-Bit legacy sub system. Despite what people say, Apple appears to actually use some advantages of EFI.

See the reason why you can't update the card further than the 8800GT is because the newer cards have a 64-Bit EFI Rom and the 2006 Mac Pro has a 32-Bit EFI ROM inside.

 

[53Spades]

I don't know if I should laugh or cry. Apple will never dominate the desktop gaming industry. All this talk about Steam and Valve being the "breakthrough" is laughable at best. In fact, I don't even understand the point of this article...

I wouldn't be so sure. If you look at the iPhone - they defo try to position that as some kind of gaming advice with those 50k+ games in the App-Store. Why shouldn't they try to go in that direction with the grown up devices as well? Most Macs are placed in "lifstyle" already anyway...
Let's hope they don't forget the Pro-line while making a killing with dumb kids shoveling out cash for useless games and fun apps they use but once.

(that said - AWESOME news. I want Half-Life. And Counterstrike. And Modern Warefare. And UFO. And And And...)

 

[jawshua]

I just wonder if they are going to branch off into linux as well.

 

[Leozin]

omg I don't need my pc anymore

Having Blizzard Games + Steam games = full mac ftw

in fact, just one thing I still missing for mac: A good MSN Messenger client, like Windows Live Messenger for windows.

I'm very happy with that news

 

[MorphingDragon]

omg I don't need my pc anymore

Having Blizzard Games + Steam games = full mac ftw

in fact, just one thing I still missing for mac: A good MSN Messenger client, like Windows Live Messenger for windows.

I'm very happy with that news

Try Adium.

I just wonder if they are going to branch off into linux as well.

That'll happen when all hell freezes over and Linux devs realize GTK doesn't make nice looking GUIs.

But then again, all the Mac vs Windows hate might keep it warm.

 

[levitynyc]

Do I dare to say it? I do: this is the most significant thing to happen to the mac since the Intel switch.

This.

 

[mattgoldey]

Portal is the ONE THING that I miss about not having a Windows PC anymore. This is SO SO SO awesome for me.